


If You Can Prove It

by CollisionTheory



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Banter, CT-6482 | Eyes-up (OC) mentioned, Carbonite Freezing (Star Wars), Clone Trooper Relationships (Star Wars), Commander Thorn mentioned, Developing Relationship, F/M, Flirting, Light Angst, Post-Time Skip, Rare Pairings, Rated T for language, Tags may change later, Worldbuilding, time travel (sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29935740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CollisionTheory/pseuds/CollisionTheory
Summary: At the end of the Clone Wars, Commander Fox had been dragged off to a GAR black site and frozen in carbonite. It's been two weeks since he woke to find himself collapsing onto the sandy floor of Jabba's palace, staring up at a masked Leia Organa and 20 years removed from a life that to him was only moments old. Now Fox and Leia find each other alone on the Rebel base, and Leia is curious about clones.
Relationships: CC-1010 | Fox/Leia Organa
Comments: 17
Kudos: 37





	If You Can Prove It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PoisonousCephalopod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoisonousCephalopod/gifts).



> Thanks to PoisonousCephalopod for doing the beta read of this fic and collaborating on the creation of Foxeia!

Most everyone else had filtered out of the firing range, making their way back to the main base hidden among jungle and patchy ruins. Commander Fox— well, just ‘Fox’ now— had been seconds from counting himself among them, ready to escape the humidity and return to the novel world of a military environment where every face was unique and every piece of equipment had been donated, salvaged, or liberated under different circumstances. But Leia Organa had planted herself in the practice lane next to his some time ago, and had just spoken to his departing figure in a tone of voice that said its owner was used to always receiving an answer. 

“How well can you see in that thing?” 

He paused mid-motion, fingers about to pop the seal of the helmet around his neck. Like he’d bother using it at all if the answer was ‘poorly...’ With a few micromotions of his eyes, Fox set the view out his visor to cycle through diagnostic testing mode, displaying all its base functionality views in a timed sequence over his HUD. 

“See for yourself.” 

He closed the distance between them and took his helmet off, holding it out to her almost against his will. Two weeks ago he’d never have passed off part of his kit to someone so casually, but two weeks ago Fox had been dragged in an indigent rage to a GAR black site in the belly of Coruscant, then snapped awake to find himself collapsing out of a carbonite slab onto the sandy floor of Jabba’s den. Tatooine apparently hadn’t changed at all 20 years later— it figured the Hutts were still in power... 

Leia took the helmet and unfastened the braid crowning her head, letting it swing down over her shoulders before shoving Fox's bucket on. 

He clasped his hands behind his back and watched her, waiting for the moment the shadow hologram would dissolve, turning her into somebody who looked like him and had that same voice he’d heard a thousand variations on over his decade-plus of life. Someone from Clone Intelligence telling him this fucked-up exercise was over, or maybe Commander Thorn grinning an admission to adulterating his beer with some high-potency contraband...

“Huh. Much better than a stormtrooper’s.” 

A shadow hologram was too much to seriously hope for anyway. She was very much Leia Organa of Alliance High Command, having apparently made the jump from senator and civilian to rebel planner and combatant in a way that left Fox uncomfortably confused over what exactly her position was, let alone how to address her aside from ‘ma’am.’ 

“Those are all the display modes you’d need to operate effectively,” he said as Leia peered around the firing range through his helmet, no doubt taking in the novelty of the HUD scrolling across the EM spectrum. 

“So if, say, Commander Thorn–” he caught himself, jumping over words he hadn’t thought about and didn’t presently want to. “If another trooper were to put on my helmet during a fight, they wouldn’t lose any capability.” 

Leia looked at him, silent for a moment. “Is that someone you knew?”

Fox wanted to say they were brothers, but that word changed meaning across natborn cultures. His time liaising with the civilian leadership had taught him that Leia’s understanding of the concept likely didn’t intersect completely with his. 

“We were friends. He was also in the Coruscant Guard– CO of a subordinate command. And now I’m at least...” Fox made a show of activating the backup chrono on his vambrace. “...twenty years and two hours late to pick up his speeder before my men cite him for a parking violation.”

Shit, they’d probably even gotten there early and counted down the seconds before they could write him up.  _ Good _ . 

If any of them were still alive and Fox could find them, he’d buy them all the spotchka they wanted. Every month that Eyes-up  _ especially  _ managed to survive was an achievement in and of itself; he’d cover that trooper’s whole damn tab for a month if he’d somehow made it, no doubt shortening the already reduced life expectancy of his brothers in the process. 

Leia’s chest rose as she took a deep breath, the sound filtering out of his helmet’s vocal modulators dropping him into a slightly more serious headspace. 

“Sometimes our friends...they become our families.” She crossed her arms, head turned to stare at a gap in the mossy stone ceiling. “There are imperial personnel records inherited from the old Republic system. If the Empire retained Commander Thorn for any length of time, they’ll be even more extensive. There’s a lot we can pull on short notice.” 

Leia brought her head back down. Fox could practically see her eyes fix his beneath the opaque visor. 

“If that’s something you want, Fox, I can arrange it.” 

“I do. Thank you, ma’am.” He kept his voice and expression flat, belying the twinge of raw possibility that had just made his heart jump and stomach feel as empty as hard vacuum. 

Leia made a small dismissive gesture with her hand accompanied by a  _ tsk _ .

“Relax. Or ‘at ease,’ whatever.” 

Fox straightened, partly because of her casual attitude, but mostly because no one had ever told him to ‘relax’ before. The last time he’d even used that word he’d been joking, mixing caf powder into his hydration flask and overseeing an EOD operation two hours into his ‘protected sleep’ period, something that had only existed on paper unless you were a pilot responsible for something more expensive than you were. 

Leia continued. 

“And I can’t give you a timeline, but it  _ will _ get done.” She turned a bit to the side and waved a hand in front of her face, likely watching some kind of data tracker or checking out his helmet’s thermal imaging mode if the test program had gotten to the infrared end of the spectrum. 

“So is everything I’m seeing all this thing does?” Leia asked. 

Fox actually did relax this time. Back to business. 

“No. There are other functionalities—messages, recorded footage, secure comm lines— tied to my individual position and clearance levels. But you’d need my matching retinal scan to access any of that.” 

Fox huffed out a silent laugh, wondering if there was a system online anymore that’d recognize his clearance code. 

“Thought clones were identical,” she said offhandedly, turning away from him to aim her blaster down range. Her aim wavered slightly, probably trying to make sense of all the data the HUD was throwing at her at once. Fox didn’t expect her to understand most of it anyway. 

“Only mostly.” He said evenly. “And not everything is genetic.” 

Like retinal patterns, for one. 

“Well I’m not a scientist,” Leia drawled, firing off a few shots at a marker in the distance as he watched without comment. The blue bolts fizzed out harmlessly over the target, absorbed by the energy-dispersing material that glowed in the spot where it had just been hit. 

She looked over at Fox, head angled down like she was eyeing something by his waist. 

“Two blasters huh? Whoever cloned you people must’ve been stuck on Duros rodeo tricks.” 

An observation, a little bit of a smirk that Fox could feel across the visor. 

“Unlikely.” He narrowed his eyes and sent one back. 

“You know…” she turned back around, firing a few more shots down range. “I always thought the double blasters were from holo dramas, just a bunch of romantic–” another burst of shots “–propaganda bullshit, for the ‘heroes who put down the coup.’” 

_Heroes_. Fox bit the inside of his cheek. 

“What else is in those holo dramas?” 

“There’s plenty. Weren’t you trained to ask more specific questions?” 

Fox waited for her to fire a few more times, then spoke as she swapped out for a new blaster pack. 

“As a senator, weren’t you trained to be more tactful?” He crossed his arms, biting back any amusement in his voice out of an unwillingness to show that he was glad she wasn’t. 

She made a dismissive sound and ignored that question. 

“Oh there’s this thing they do, spinning their blasters in both hands like they’re trying–”

“–to show off?” Fox finished, pulling out his DC-17s and spinning them right on cue, grinning. 

Leia shoved her blaster into her belt and turned to stare at him, pulling the helmet off and holding it in the crook of her arm. 

“You’re  _ joking, _ ” she said, looking half incredulous and smiling a little despite herself. 

Fox holstered his pistols. 

“They probably got that idea from helmet footage. Some of the men sell–  _ would _ sell, recorded material to make some credits, OPSEC be damned.” They mostly just sold to people who got off on watching that kind of thing, but you had to be a special kind of naïve to think the CIS wasn’t pawing through thousands of hours of whatever recordings it could get its hands on. 

Not that any of that mattered now, of course. He kept screwing up his tenses when talking or thinking. His ‘yesterday’ and all the planned ‘tomorrows’ he’d had were two decades in the past, but talking about them like they  _ weren’t  _ made him feel closer to everything that had been shot out from under him. But the other part of him knew that was bullshit he shouldn’t hide behind, and he hated that he kept fucking up two weeks after popping out of carbonite. It was like his subconscious wanted him to stick his head into the sand of the nearest generic desert world this sector of space had to offer, and Jango knew there were way too kriffin’ many. 

“Footage for credits? Hard to imagine the Republic paid worse than the Empire, but I’d believe it.” Leia shot a knowing look off in the direction of the barracks, missing the twinge of bitter amusement that flashed over Fox’s face. 

“You’d be surprised just how much they paid.” He stuck his tongue in the pocket of his cheek, eyes glinting. “Least I can say is that my brothers and I were quite expensive.” 

“Sorry to disappoint you, commander, but none of the rest of us in the Rebellion are getting credits for this. You’ll have to make do with ration bars and whatever articles and weapons you’re issued.” Leia opened her mouth as if to add something to that thought, maybe a taunt that’d leave her wide open for a salvo of Fox’s own, but evidently decided not to go wherever her mind had led her. Too bad. 

Fox laughed, face in a half-smile as he looked at her. The dim light of the range fuzzed around the fly-away hairs escaping from her braid and top of her head, catching the beginnings of a halo. And he liked that his eyes caught over hers, especially not minding that hers seemed to be stuck on his too. 

“ What?” Leia’s half question, half demand drifted softly over to him. 

He shifted in place, tilting his head as he held her gaze. 

“Just interesting to hear some things haven’t changed.” 

“Yeah. Anyway…” Leia shoved his helmet back to him, Fox catching it before it could hit his chest. “I hope however good you were with  _ those _ –” she shot a pointed glance at his dual blasters “–hasn’t changed either since you’ve been frozen in Jabba’s sandy slime heap.” 

Leia looked him over, expression a picture of the unimpressed even as her eyes lingered over some places a little longer than Fox would’ve considered necessary. 

“Cryo sickness can do a number on you,” she continued. “And we’ll see how well the historical reputation of the Republic’s Grand Army holds up, if you can prove it.” 

“Fair enough.” Fox looked at the ground and stepped closer to her. “Whatever you need me to get done, I’ll do my job. I guarantee it.” His voice softened– reassuring, not arrogant. 

“That  _ is _ the idea, yes.” She worried the strap of her belt as she lost focus for a moment, staring at nothing. 

Leia turned back around towards the firing lane, selecting a new mode on the console to train with moving targets instead of stationary ones. Fox stayed behind her, watching with calm interest as she scored a few hits with her blaster, the faint smell of vented tibanna drifting past. 

“You’re a good shot for a senator.” 

Leia craned her head over her shoulder to look back at him, indignant. 

“I’m a good shot, period!” 

“A promising one, sure. And I’ll believe it...” Fox smiled at her, then bent over her shoulder until his face was next to hers, speaking right in her ear. “... _ if you can prove it,  _ in an actual operation.” 

“Oh please!” Leia made a face, but her expression faltered as it met his own mischievous one, eyes flitting up to take in the ribbons of light twisting off his dark curls. 

Fox pulled away from her and put his helmet back on, walking towards the door. He paused at the threshold, turning back for a moment as Leia shook her head and focused on something on the training console. 

“Goodnight, ma’am.” 

Her hand hovered over the controls as she looked over at him standing in the doorway. 

“Just call me ‘Leia,’ Fox?” 

“Goodnight,  _ Leia _ .” 

He turned and slipped out the doorway, boots tapping softly over the ancient stone that gave way to rough-paved duracate, smiling to himself as he walked out into the warm night. 

**Author's Note:**

> Acronyms:
> 
> GAR - Grand Army of the Republic   
> EOD - explosive ordnance disposal  
> OPSEC - operations security


End file.
